Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare

An aging population and an economy that has been slow to rebound are straining the long-term finances of Social Security and Medicare, the government’s two largest benefit programs.

Those problems are getting new attention Monday as the trustees who oversee the massive programs release their annual financial reports.

Medicare is in worse shape than Social Security because of rising health care costs. But both programs are on a path to become insolvent in the coming decades, unless Congress acts, according to the trustees.

[dmc-related-post-wp numitems="3" title="Also read"]

Last year, the trustees projected the Medicare hospital insurance fund for seniors would run out of money in 2024. Social Security’s retirement fund was projected to run dry in 2038, while the disability fund was projected to be drained by 2018.

New projections in March gave a more dire assessment of the disability program, which has seen a spike in applications as more disabled workers lose jobs and apply for benefits.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the disability fund would run out of money in 2016. Social Security’s trustees are again urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994.

If the Social Security and Medicare funds ever become exhausted, both programs would collect only enough money in payroll taxes to pay partial benefits, the trustees said.

“I don’t know how to make it clear to the public, but in my mind the sirens are going off,” said Mary Johnson, policy analyst for the Senior Citizens League. “I wouldn’t say we’re under attack, but we are in a very, very serious position.”

Don’t expect the finances to look much better, if at all, in the new report. Tax revenues have started to rebound but they are still below pre-recession levels. Also, this year’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, was much higher than the trustees projected it would be.

Last spring, the trustee’s projected that Social Security recipients would get a benefit increase of 0.7 percent for this year, but higher-than-expected inflation pushed it to 3.6 percent. That was good news for seniors but it drained more resources from the system.

The trustees who oversee the programs are Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue. There are also two public trustees, Charles Blahous and Robert Reischauer.

More than 56 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children receive Social Security. The average retirement benefit is $1,232 a month; the average monthly benefit for disabled workers is $1,111.

About 50 million people are covered by Medicare, the medical insurance program for older Americans.

One bright spot for Medicare is that the pace of cost increases has eased somewhat, even as baby boomers are turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 a day and becoming eligible for the program. So instead of speeding toward a budget cliff, Medicare is merely steering toward insolvency.

“The trends in Medicare are more modest than the cost increases we have seen in the private commercial sector,” said economist David Blitzer, who oversees Standard & Poor’s index of health care costs. “But both Medicare and the commercial sector face rising cost pressures no matter what, and they seem to come from virtually all directions.”

Because Medicare is a government program, it sets prices on take-it-or-leave-it terms for hospitals and doctors, who complain it doesn’t pay enough and that causes them to charge more to privately insured patients.

One comment

Oh! Let’s all vote for OBAMA in 2012!!!!!. a forward thinking Harvard/Columbia brain AND he has so solutions. ??
Great going America!!!
Nothing for nothing, but blame Bush II tried to address the entitlement issues, along with the Fanny and Freddie blowup (14 times) of the housing market…but who in lame-stream media remembers.
Pay attention…you’re losing your FREEDOM & your election vote.
Mr. Obama is putting the Nov. 2012 election count in SPAIN, SCLYE, a Spanish organization, to count the vote NOT THE COUNTIES, CITIES, STATES. IT’S FINAL…NO RECOUNT is AVAILABLE. Do I hear dictator?
WHO IS REPORTING IT IN THE MEDIA????